Archive for October, 2008

Taking the “Count” Out of Accountability

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 23, 2008 in Assessment and Testing and accountability. 1 Comment

Thousands of Ohio students who take state standardized tests aren’t part of the final grades reported by school districts, reports the Columbus Dispatch.  And the state says it has no way of knowing whether school districts are removing students from the testing rolls appropriately.  The paper reports an average of 4,000 students fell off the rolls for each of the 23 Ohio Achievement Tests given last school year. 

Here’s how the process works: Students take a standardized test. A testing company grades their work, then sends scores to the school district.  At that time, districts can remove students’ scores if they have withdrawn from the district or never attended in the first place. Even more students are stripped when districts report their scores to the state, because the Department of Education removes students who didn’t spend the entire academic year in the district.

Columbus schools dropped, on average, 11.4 percent of students from its test results, the paper reports.  ”In doing so, passing rates climbed at every grade level, sometimes dramatically.”  No surprise there, since students who don’t stay in school for the entire year tend not to do as well as those who stay put.  But then there’s this line in the story:  “Columbus schools cut fewer test scores from its rolls than its mobility rate would indicate it could.”

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

It’s The Economy, Stupid. Right?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 23, 2008 in Education Practice and Higher Education. 1 Comment

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says failing public schools pose America’s greatest national security concern–undermining the United States’ ability to lead and to compete in a global economy.  Speaking at a conference in Long Beach, California, Rice said it breaks her heart to see “kids who might be the next Nobel Prize winner trapped in some public school that’s just basically warehousing them.”

As a secretary of state, it makes me terrified because if we cannot do better in educating all of our people, then we are not going to be competitive in a global economy…We’re going to become protectionist, we’re going to turn inward, the United States is not going to lead.

In an unrelated NY Times op-ed, the Berkeley professor of education and public policy Bruce Fuller takes exception to fusing “the fundamental purpose of schooling to the capitalist yearning for economic expansion.”

Sure, as parents we want our children to succeed economically. But we also worry about whether they are forming supportive friendships in school and becoming confident thinkers in the hands of nurturing teachers. While contemporary parents still subscribe to humanistic ideals when it comes to children’s well-rounded development, the new utilitarian approach is too quick to fuse schooling to dollar signs. Do we really need more college-educated workers or would we be better off with young people who are employed and engaged in their local communities?  

Does Certified Equal Qualified?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 23, 2008 in Education Practice and Educational Policy. 8 Comments

Should mid-career switchers, including former military personnel, be able to go directly into teaching without obtaining certification.  John McCain seemed to suggest as much in the last presidential debate. Over at Teacher Magazine, the question is being hotly debated.  Unsurprisingly most find the idea wanting.  Says one:

If military retirees are allowed to go straight into the classrom, then why not allow all college graduates to do the same thing?  As the nation argues for more accountability for teachers, why would we lower the bar for the necessary post-secondary education needed to become a teacher?

At least one teacher, however, is willing to suggest there is a difference between being certified and being qualified. 

Private schools do not require their teachers to be certified, and many have very qualified teachers….I agree that teachers should have extensive training in pedogogical practices before they become teachers, but I’m not sure if taking the Praxis and doing all of that paperwork towards my certification has made me a better teacher. 

Math Scores: U.S. Cities vs. The World

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 23, 2008 in No category. 0 Comments

Students in six major U.S. cities–Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Houston, New York and San Diego–are performing as well or better in mathematics than 4th and 8th graders in other countries, according to a new study by the American Institutes for Research (AIR).

However, students from five other major cities–Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, the District of Columbia and Los Angeles–are performing below the international average, and sometimes well below.  The research compares data on the U.S. cities math performance in the NAEP 2007 Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) in  Mathematics with international numbers culled from the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). 

USA Today looks at the numbers and concludes “Fourth- and eighth-grade students in…Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Houston, New York City and San Diego actually hold their own against international competitors from Singapore, Japan, England and elsewhere.”  That’s an overly generous description given that Singapore has 73% of its 8th graders proficient in math; Japan has 57%; while the top U.S. cities in the study, Charlotte and Austin, have a proficiency rate of 34%.  However, the international TIMSS average among 8th graders is a mere 21%.  For it’s part AIR concludes:

The findings in this report reinforce the fact that neither the typical student in the United States or in any of the 11 urban districts has achieved the Proficient level of performance found in Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, Chinese Taipei, and Japan. If the United States is counting on today’s mathematics education to seed the future technology and science needed to carry our cities and our nation forward, then we are already at a competitive disadvantage.

A press release on the study is here.  The full report is here.

Essential Reading for Teachers

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 22, 2008 in Opinion. 1 Comment

Dan Brown’s memoir of his first year as a New York City teacher, The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle, is out in paperback.  I will freely admit my bias: Dan’s book resonated with me because his experience as a New York City Teaching Fellow assigned to a school in the Bronx mirrored my own experience so closely.  Still, Dan is a fine writer and Great Expectations is a great read. 

Top 5 Teacher Books, anyone?  Off the top of my head, here’s my list:

1. Among Schoolchildren, Tracy Kidder
I’d pay to read Tracy Kidder’s grocery list. 

2. Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire, Rafe Esquith
Esquith’s essential optimism re-energized me on many occasions.  Try to find even a sentence of “woe-is-me-this-is-too-hard” in his book.  The man’s a saint. 

3. The Essential 55: An Award-Winning Educator’s Rules for Discovering the Successful Student in Every Child, by Ron Clark 
The original New Paternalism.  Go ahead and mock Clark’s highly prescriptive measures, but this book made me a better teacher.  What higher praise can there be?

4.  There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America, by Alex Kotlowitz
Not a teacher book per se, but a first-rate account of childhood in urban poverty. Kotlowitz avoids the tendency to sentimentalize the lives of the urban poor, and his book is all the more powerful for it. 

5.  Ms. Moffett’s First Year, Abby Goodnough
My favorite book about the alternative certification experience before Dan’s came along.

While not a teacher memoir, or even an education book, the one I’d make required reading for any new urban teacher would be Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc.  I wish before I’d become a teacher, someone had merely handed the book to me and said, “Just read this. Everything you need to know is in here.”

Banking on Test Scores

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 22, 2008 in Education Practice. 0 Comments

With both presidential candidates supporting merit pay for teachers, it’s likely that the issue will affect teachers nationwide, USA Today’s Greg Toppo observes this morning in a piece that offers a round-up of pay-for-performance plans nationwide. 

“At least eight states are moving away from a traditional pay model, which increases salaries based on seniority and advanced degrees,” Toppo writes. ”Many of the pay packages are funded by private foundations. In dozens of districts, test scores already have earned teachers more money.”

The most controversial plan is Washington, DC’s which could see high-performing teachers with limited experience earn over $100,000 if they give up tenure.  George Parker, president of the Washington Teachers Union tells USA Today, “A lot of our younger teachers say, ‘Bring it on.’ ” Older teachers, he says, are more concerned with due process. 

Blah, Blah, Blah

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 22, 2008 in Higher Education. 1 Comment

Officials at a Massachusetts college are apologizing to their alumni for a fund-raising letter that attempted to sound irreverent by featuring long sections of “blah, blah, blah.”

“With the recent economic downturn and loan crisis, it has become even more important for Framingham State College to receive your support. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

“Our decision to send you a letter containing the words “blah blah” was a misguided and embarrassing attempt to connect with alumni in a different way,” Christopher P. Hendry, vice president of college advancement, said in an apology letter.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Say It Ain’t So, O.

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 21, 2008 in Educational Policy and accountability. 2 Comments

Over at Flypaper, Mike Petrilli drops a bombshell.  He was on a talk show this morning with, among others, Greg Toppo of USA Today and Melody Barnes of the Obama campaign.

We discussed the candidates’ education proposals, and all went according to plan until about halfway through the segment when Melody said that Obama wanted to look at different kinds of student assessments, including portfolios.  Portfolios? As Greg and I said on the air, this was news. We’re not aware of the Obama camp ever saying before that portfolios might be part of the mix. I’m pretty sure I could hear Kati Haycock screaming from a few miles away.

As Mike points out, portfolios were found to be completely unreliable as large-scale accountability measures years ago.   “Let me make a prediction,” writes Petrilli, ”either the Obama campaign will clarify that the Senator would consider portfolios on top of tests, not instead of them, or the McCain campaign will pounce on this issue and argue that it shows Obama to be weak on reform. Because one thing is for sure: embracing portfolios is a clear signal of an intention to roll back accountability.”

Portfauxlio Update:  Michele McNeil at Campaign K-12 says Obama talkin’ about alternate assessment is nothing new and no big deal.

Update II:  More from Petrilli.  “I respectfully disagree with McNeil,” he notes.  ”It still sounds to me that Barnes is talking about portfolios instead of standardized tests..”   He suggests the Obama campaign could clarify: are you in favor of continuing standardized testing under NCLB, or not?  

Update III:  Over at TWIE, A-Rus has a fairly persuasive Obama quote from earlier in the campaign that sheds light on the Portfauxlio affair:  “This doesn’t mean that we won’t have a standardized test, I believe children should master that skill as well and that should be part of the assessments and tools that we use to make sure our children are learning. It just can’t dominate the curriculum to the extent where we are pushing aside those things that will actually allow children to improve and will accurately assess the quality of teaching that is taking place in the classroom. This is not an either/or proposition, it is a both/and proposition, and that’s what we will be working on by fixing NCLB.”

Attendance Is Not On The Test

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 21, 2008 in Education Practice, Educational Policy and accountability. 8 Comments

More than 90,000 of New York City’s elementary school students–20 percent–missed at least a month of classes during the last school year, according to a new report from the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School.

In the early grades, attendance is a strong predictor of long-term success. National research suggests that chronic absenteeism in the early grades sets the stage for school failure later on. Children who miss a large number of school days in kindergarten or first grade tend to have lower levels of academic achievement throughout their school careers. Sadly, there are high levels of chronic absenteeism in New York City elementary schools, particularly in low-income neighborhoods.

It’s great to see this issue getting some attention, but forgive me if I’m utterly unsurprised, and a little disgusted.  The New York Times calls chronic absenteeism an “invisible problem” but it’s anything but to teachers in New York’s most blighted inner city neighborhoods.  Frankly, it’s also another unintended consequence of system in which The Test is the alpha and omega.  In my South Bronx elementary school we regularly promoted students who missed dozens of school days, as long as they passed — or even came close to passing – a single standardized test.  In a particularly acute case, I fought unsuccessfully to have one of my 5th graders held over who missed nearly 100 school days.  He received a 1 (below grade level) on his state math test and a 2 (”approaching” grade level) on his ELA exam and was passed without even having to attend summer school.  As long as he scored a 2 or better on either of the tests, I was told, he had to be promoted.  God help that kid.  Three years later, I still get angry thinking about it.  

In theory, I asked an administrator, could a child come to school only on the day of the state test, pass, and still be promoted?  It was a rhetorical question.  The answer was sitting in my classroom.  Occasionally.

“The Fannie Mae of NCLB Is About To Hit”

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 21, 2008 in accountability. 3 Comments

According to the Center on Education Policy, 23 states engaged in some form of “backloading” their NCLB proficiency targets–requiring small gains in the first few years of implementation, with more aggressive goals later on.  Later on has arrived, notes Thompson Publishing’s Andrew Brownstein.

Some educators rolled the dice and hoped for relief from a new president or, at the very least, a reauthorization that would eliminate some of the law’s more onerous mandates. Others, like Delaware education secretary Valerie Woodruff, merely wanted to give their school districts time to adjust their curriculum and instruction to get in sync with the law.  “We knew this might happen, but we were also hoping there’d be some adjustments and a little more reality along the way,” said. “It’s like avoiding going to the dentist. There’s always part of you that hopes the problem will go away.”

Reauthorization is not on the agenda at present, and the new president will have his hands full with the econony and two wars.  Comparisons to the financial crisis are inevitable.  “Just like over-optimistic homebuyers, states chose to defer payment until later, hoping that some miracle would bail them out before the bill came due,” Brownstein notes.

 At a recent meeting at the U.S. Department of Education (ED), Scott Marion, vice president of the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, warned, “The Fannie Mae of NCLB is about to hit.”

Bailout? What bailout?